Calatabiano: "It's a deal!" but once he took the money he disappeared, identified and reported by the Carabinieri

Always high and constant the attention of the Carabinieri of the Provincial Command of Catania, who carry out with determination their action of prevention and repression of crimes including predatory ones, such as robberies, thefts and frauds. And it is precisely in this context that, thanks to a complex investigative activity of the Carabinieri of the Calatabiano Station, on the basis of the evidence collected to be verified in the jurisdictional seat, it was A 33-year-old from Taranto was reported because he was held responsible for fraud and improper use of payment instruments.

The Carabinieri of the Station have started the investigation following the complaint of the victim of a scam, organized by simulating online the sale of a very recent and expensive latest generation smartphone.

In particular, the young man who fell for the scam, a 25-year-old local, told the police that he had been attracted by the advert for the economic convenience of the product and that, for this reason, he had contacted the seller by telephone on the number indicated in the advert. Furthermore, during the conversations between them, the seller had said that he was a Carabiniere on duty at a Catania police station, stating that he would then wait for him at his place of work, after paying the sum of 600,00 euros on a prepaid card, where he would then deliver the device to him.

The scammer, among other things, to support what he claimed about his work activity, also inserted a photo of a Carabiniere in uniform on his WhatsApp profile, all elements that made the victim trust him.

The young man, therefore, enticed by the advantageous price of the phone and convinced that he was dealing with a real policeman, made the requested bank transfer, but from that moment on the criminal disappeared without a trace.

The investigations immediately started by the military of the Calatabiano Arma allowed to ascertain immediately, that the prepaid card, topped up by the victim, was registered to a deceased woman, while the telephone number used by the scammer was registered to a non-EU citizen who was not permanently resident in Italy.

Only thanks to a meticulous and complex investigative activity, with cross-checks between the data acquired from the databases used by the Police and the analysis of the video surveillance images of the ATMs used by the criminal to withdraw money with the prepaid card, The military personnel of the Arma managed to trace the identity of the scammer, who was immediately reported.